Oh Uncle Samini why did you do that to Ghanaians?

• Posted on June 10, 2014June 11, 2014
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• 2 Comments

Ghanaian Celebrities think they can plant corn and harvest strawberry, they have tried this planting mechanism several times and it is giving them disgraceful results but they are still persisting to do what Napoleon couldn’t do.

Before this piece was put together, www.233times.net did a background check on how many Ghanaian Celebrities have Publicists or Public Relation Officers (PROs) and surprisingly not more than 6 out of the ‘sea-sand number’ Ghanaian Celebrities have someone who takes care of their public relations, they do it themselves or their Managers double task on that.

Yesterday, online was inundated with Samini winning ‘Best International Act’ at Black Canadian Awards. Indeed every Ghanaian, both Samini and non-Samini fans tweeted and ‘facebooked’ congratulatory messages to the contender of Dancehall King (Samini). This came in the wake of Sarkodie winning Best Hip Hop Artiste at the MTV Africa Music Awards. Such a double glory for Ghana!

Although almost every popular website in Ghana carried the story on Samini’s alleged win, www.233times.net did not because we were not sure and again, DJ 619, our American representative asked if the story was true because he watched the award ceremony and did not hear Samini’s name as a winner.

UTV and TV3 also embarked that story and Samini confirmed on UTV winning that award. According to Samini on Twitter, a microblogging website ”

@GhanaMixTapes confirmed to us as well as @ameyaw112 (Ameyaw Debrah) this Morning that we won.only to learn later that it was not the case.Apologies folks.”  I understand Samini perfectly because he trusted those sources deeply but my question is, how are Celebrities informed by Organisers of Awards when they win an award? Do the Celebrities only find out in the media and are not prompted via email or text messages?

From the official website of Black Canadian Awards, Soca singer and songwriter based in Trinidad and Tobago, Destra Garcia won the award.

For Samini to be in this means he should take his public relations (PR) seriously and should employ the services of a Publicist who would have verified from the organizers.

I can bet that, this would not be the last time a Ghanaian Celebrity would do such folly mistake because they would only rely on their Twitter and Facebook pages to spread new songs, inform fans about new endorsements and other news about them.

Employing a PRO is something they think is irrelevant to their work because social media is better a place to inform and be informed. Good luck on that.

If you have no idea, Jay Z’s Roc Nation employed Publicists and Writers 2 years before they even signed any Artiste to the label, an endeavour Jay Z says “we needed to keep the engine running before going on the road.” Our neighbours, Nigerian Celebrities as well are doing amazing when it comes to their public relations because they have hired Publicists to take care of their relations with the public, I can mention Chocolate City which umbrellas Brimo, Ice Prince, M.I etc as an epitome.

Enough said for now but I hope the next time I would publish anything on Ghanaian Celebrities, it would be to congratulate them on their excellent public relations because to go international needs more than mediocrity but again, everyone has their own Canaan.

Some of the apologetic tweets from Samini below;

apologies. i relayed the info to @ameyaw112 @sarkodie @samini_dagaati what i heard when i walkd in d venue at BCA was that, there was notime

— Julz Ghanamixtapes (@GhanaMixTapes) June 9, 2014

Blunders do happen @GhanaMixTapes maybe I should have waited to see confirmation on the BCA site . #HGFWestillOk …LOL akye still.

— SAMINI (@samini_dagaati) June 9, 2014

Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net)